Leicester City face ‘insolvency’ after deadline passes – Keith Wyness

Leicester City could potentially face the prospect of entering administration if their takeover process continues to stall in the coming months. 

That is according to former Aston Villa chief executive Keith Wyness, speaking exclusively to Football Insider, who has warned that the club could potentially become “insolvent.”

This comes after the deadline for interested parties to make bids for the Foxes passed on 16 October, and it is currently unclear whether anyone came to the table with an offer. 

Wyness believes that if no bids were received, then the club now faces three clear options for how to proceed, with a sizeable reduction in valuation a likely choice.

However, there is even a risk that the club may become unable to pay its own debts moving forward, which could provide the trigger for even more serious issues. 

Leicester have had interest from several different parties in recent months, but King Power are seemingly still no closer to agreeing a sale of the club at the moment. 

King Power may have to ‘write cheque’ for Leicester

Villa's former chief Wyness – who served as CEO at Villa Park between 2016 and 2018 and now runs a football consultancy advising elite clubs – believes that King Power may be forced into writing a cheque to help with the continued running of Leicester moving forward, if no bidders have officially come to the table.

The Thai owners are hoping to pull away from the club as quickly as possible, but have not been able to offload the East Midlands outfit as easily as expected so far.

Speaking on the latest edition of Football Insider’s Inside Track podcast, Wyness warned that insolvency could be on the cards if King Power do not act. 

“I'd be very concerned if I was a Leicester fan right now, or the owners certainly, because it would seem that nobody was anywhere near the ask for the bids,” he said.

“Citibank have been incredibly quiet. I still think Citibank were the wrong people to handle this transaction. And it just seems to me that there's a lot lost in the whole way that this thing's being handled.

“There are three ways forward right now, and there seems to be a funding gap and no sale. So either A, the present owners write a cheque, which is going to be tough for them to do.

“There could also be a fire sale. That's the other thing that they're going to have to do to raise the money for the funding gap.

“Or else, I'm afraid insolvency is starting to look like it could be on the cards, like a Sheffield Wednesday situation. Events will decide which of those routes we're going to go down.

“I think they'd have been better served getting some minority investors in, working with them to try and then establish a takeover position at some stage rather than try to sell the whole thing.”

Keith Wyness shares issue surrounding Leicester valuation

Wyness previously told Football Insider back in September that King Power should accept any offer for Leicester at around the £100million mark, rather than holding out for their full £222m valuation. 

He has now reiterated once again that there are clear flaws surrounding the current price tag for the club. 

“As I understand it, the whole value they're asking for is basically based on the real estate assets they've got, which is a nice stadium and a beautiful training ground,” he continued.

“But I'm afraid unless you have a football team that wins matches, those things aren't really up to the value that they hope to get. So it's a difficult one for Leicester, a great old club, but as I say, I think it needs a more creative approach rather than just a normal bank coming in to try and run a process.”